“For Future Times and Beings”

In 1977, NASA launched two spacecraft called Voyager to explore the outer solar system and to serve as emissaries of Earth to the stars. Attached to each spacecraft is a gold-coated copper phonograph record containing a message to possible extraterrestrial civilizations that may encounter them in some distant space and time—a greeting created by a committee chaired by Cornell astronomer, Carl Sagan.

This special 3-day exhibition will feature one of the only Golden Record covers that remain on Earth, courtesy of Ann Druyan, creative director of NASA’s Voyager Interstellar Message. It has never before been on public display. These covers protect the records and include iconic instructions for extraterrestrials on how to play them.

The multi-media exhibition will also present images and sounds selected for the Golden Record and astronomy books from Cornell’s History of Science collection, including the original book by Isaac Newton that was chosen by the committee to represent all books, the principal means by which humans stored and retrieved information in a pre-digital world.

The special 3-day exhibition will take place in Kroch Library, on level 2B, for these days only: